Healed?

Chill. It is the Season and my favorite coffee shop trumpets as usual its annual planner which can be had for an equivalent number of coffee cups. But who needs a printed and handwritten planner in this age which is actively searching for a personal digital convergence device. Lugging around and much less opening printed pages to write on in meetings are ancient. I presage this blog with that observation in relation to the immediately preceding post (re Fractures).

Many thanks to those who provided rejoinders by voting for the idea that 'categories' help us 'make sense' of this world.

Yes, categories and planners help us 'make sense' of our presence and that of others in this world. They also enable us to rationalize thoughts and behavior especially if these are different from our expectations. How much and to what extent can we actually predict the behavior of others in order to align our plans with theirs. If you'd ask me if we even need to do that, my answer would be a 'yes'.

Consider an arranged date with someone you've been having the 'hots' for. All's been planned for this auspicious date only to be blindsided by a text message from him asking for a re-schedule due to some 'significant' reason. Did you really think that this wasn't coming? Why were you not able to foresee? Is it  unforeseeable -- maybe not as easy without a previous history. If you had foreseen, what would you have done?

If another situation/event intervened like your winning the US$10 Million Lottery prize, will the plan and the outcome have changed.

There are tell-tale signs that will allow us to spot doubts; however, rationalized plans and categories force us into believing that a fracture just isn't possible. But a fracture hurts. Mendable? Possibly yes. There is hope after all in this world. As another blogger keeps on plugging -- amen to 'world peace'.  

Fractures

Fuzzies. Our nephew Alfred went to a social event of 'beklettes' last weekend eventually ending up at a much larger Halloween party which according to him was dominated by the 'bekies' and 'beklettes'. That was some interesting social division which I first became aware of through reading AC's blog. Over glasses of margarita, I mulled over the existence of such categories particularly as they have been affecting civilizations.

A colleague who lives in Kabul I would imagine has a life fraught with constant danger no matter how much he tries to deny this reality which came about due to divisions in ethnic philosophies. Again concepts of categories among people much like differences between Christianity and Islam. History is replete with the recurrence of emerging categories that are split further into some other categories. Could that be a way of coping with inevitable complexities in this world?

There are meanings attributed to these categories such in the "Left" or the "Right". A high school student today may refer to the "Tea Party" with its meanings in current American politics than its historical origins. With tomorrow's mid-term elections in the USA, I view the combination of certain categories to suit candidates' objectives provided by the convenience and escape inherent in these categories. Consider for example a Democrat who doesn't favor Obama's healthcare reform. 

To make these categories suit certain objectives is ideal if only these can be predicted. It may well be the key to preventing the transport of mail bombs from cargo planes in Yemen or to promoting their successful delivery!  

In a world filled with categories, differences, and fracture after fracture, we could only hope for the best this Sweet November.